National Baseball Team Star Amanda Asay Remembered as Determined and Caring

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Amanda Asay was an extraordinary multitasker.

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The pride of Prince George was one of the first stars of the Canadian women’s national baseball team, shining both in the batter’s box and on the mound. In between, he completed his PhD in forestry and had started working in that sector.

Asay played NCAA hockey and softball for Brown University, an Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island. She also played hockey at the University of BC, on her way to completing her education.

Asay died Friday in a skiing accident at the Whitewater Resort near Nelson. She was 33 years old.

Multiple sports communities are in mourning.

“She had that drive and that determination. When I had a goal in mind, I did everything I could to achieve it, ”said Dayle Poulin, also a Prince George native who played hockey with Asay at UBC and was his roommate for several years. “She always wanted to do more. She was never comfortable with what she had or what she was doing. That drive is what sets her apart from me.

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“She was very, very humble about everything. She never spoke of any of that. On some level, she was a secretly spectacular athlete and student. And despite everything, he was never stressed. Honestly, I don’t know how she couldn’t be stressed out with the amount of things that always happened to her. “

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Asay spent 15 years on the national baseball team, beginning at age 17 in 2005. He participated in training camp last August in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec.

Pitcher Claire Eccles, 24, who has seven years of national team experience, was the next highest-ranking player on the 28-woman list featured on the Baseball Canada website. A dozen of the players were teenagers.

“He lived in Nelson for his job and there wasn’t much around him (with baseball), but he always found ways to keep up with the ball on his own,” said Eccles, a Surrey native who played softball at UBC and also had a couple of seasons with the Victoria HarbourCats summer college league men’s team. “She sent these videos of what she was doing and she was always very, very, very hard-working.

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“How determined I was made you want to work even harder. I want to make her proud ”.

Kirsten Rozek, who played hockey with Asay at UBC, tells a similar story. They were part of a group in a cabin one summer. The plan was to relax and hang out for a weekend. Asay managed to get some training.

“We were all like ‘What are you doing?’ She is so committed. We just stood there in awe and watched, ”said Rozek.

As much as Asay was focused on her activities, it seems like she was always connected with her people. Eccles says that Asay would without fail track her down on her birthday, no matter what was going on in Asay’s life.

Poulin backs up that story. She says her first text message every Christmas morning and her first every New Years Eve would inevitably be from Asay.

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“I think people need to know how exceptional she was as a person,” said Poulin. “Everyone who knew her benefited from being around her. She made everyone around her better people.

“She always, always made sure her family and friends knew she was thinking of them.”

Eccles added: “She was always a leader.”

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Asay stood out as a catcher, first baseman and pitcher in her time with the national team.

Playing in her first Women’s Baseball World Cup in 2006, Asay won full tournament honors at first base and the National Team MVP award.

She was the team’s MVP again in 2016, but this time it was because of her dominance on the mound. He pitched a complete game in a 2-1 win against a mighty Chinese Taipei team in the semi-finals of the tournament.

He was part of the Canadian teams that won silver twice (2008, 2016) and bronze three times (2006, 2012, 2018) at the World Cup and was also a member of the Canadian team that won silver at the 2015 Pan American Games. the first time women’s baseball was included in a major multi-sport event.

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In August 2020, she was one of the guest speakers at a Baseball BC webinar. She had just completed her studies and admitted in a Postmedia story ahead of time that she was listed as “Dr. Amanda Asay” in the promotional material “feels weird.”

He also said the following in the story: “I think one of the most important things I want to say to young players is that if this is what they love to do and are willing to work hard, they can find a way. Every time they open up. more places if baseball is your passion. I want to encourage them to keep going. “

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